Noriega`s Attorneys Plan Move

Defense attorneys will ask a federal judge on Monday to free Manuel Antonio Noriega as a means of punishing the government for the death and destruction caused during the U.S. invasion of Panama.

But government prosecutors are confident they will short-circuit the effort by arguing that Noriega has no legal standing to have his indictment thrown out based on those claims.

Prosecutors argued in a legal brief filed on Friday in advance of the hearing that ``Noriega`s allegations of `war crimes` and other atrocities are irrelevant`` to the drug-trafficking and racketeering charges filed against him in federal court.

They said that a report on the U.S. invasion cited by Noriega`s attorneys is ``extraordinarily biased and inaccurate.``

At the heart of the legal debate is whether the U.S. engaged in unconstitutional conduct in returning Noriega in early January to the United States to face charges contained in his 1988 indictment.

Prosecutors said Noriega surrendered peacefully and was brought legally to stand trial. They stressed that U.S. courts traditionally have not cared how foreign fugitives are captured as long as defendants were not tortured or severely mistreated.

Though they concede Noriega was never physically mistreated, his defense attorneys argued that the United States did mistreat others severely in Panama during the course of the invasion -- including thousands of civilians who were killed, wounded or left homeless.

Defense attorney John May, who is expected to argue the issue on Monday, said in a recent legal brief that the death and destruction unleashed by the Bush administration in Panama far outweighed any negative consequences of Noriega`s purported criminal involvement.

``Nothing Gen. Noriega is accused of could ever justify such a deliberate taking of human life,`` May wrote. ``If ever there were a case of the ends not justifying the means, if ever there were a case where our courts must act to deter such conduct from occurring again, such a case is this.``

May`s arguments revolve around a 1974 U.S. Court of Appeals case that said that federal judges have the authority to throw out criminal charges against a defendant if they determine that the government in capturing and returning a fugitive used methods so outrageous that they ``shock the conscience`` of the court.

May argues that the invasion of a sovereign state by 25,000 U.S. troops and the subsequent death of 200 to 4,000 persons during an operation aimed at returning a single fugitive to Miami is shocking to the conscience.

``We believe that the conduct engaged in by the United States military far exceeds anything ever considered by our courts,`` May wrote.